The Missing Spiral
by Megii of Mysteri OusStranger
Summary: Someone discovers that Naruto is her cousin, and she’s one of the last people you’d expect.


The Missing Spiral

_Someone discovers that Naruto is her cousin, and she's one of the last people you'd expect._

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* * *

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Karin was not a happy camper. True, she wasn't out in the wilderness, or actually camping in the first place, quite the opposite, but the fact remained nonetheless that she was one very upset young woman.

Why was she unhappy? The answer to that is very simple: she was currently a prisoner of Konohagakure's Torture and Interrogation Department. Morino Ibiki hadn't been easy on her, but Karin herself was a tough cookie to crack—she had lived under Orochimaru for years, after all, so she was not new to torture. But she found herself being slowly ground down. If Suigetsu or Juugo or Sasuke were trapped with her, she probably would've been able to hold herself together longer, but alas, she was the only one missing from Taka. What was worse was that none of the boys had made any effort to snatch her away from the Konoha squad that abducted her. Juugo had looked startled enough, but Suigetsu had only laughed while Sasuke sneered.

The redheaded young woman bowed her head, her messy hair covering her face._ 'What happened to you, Sasuke-kun?'_ She wondered in self-pity. '_When did you start thinking me useless? When did I become useless to you?'_ She ground her teeth together, pulling fruitlessly at the chakra-suppressing chains binding her to the wall. Her legs burned. She let out a furious, heart-broken howl. "You stubborn, self-absorbed, goddamn bastard! There's no way I'm useless! How many times did I save you from the brink of death? You'd be dead ten times over if not for me! How can you just toss me away like trash?"

Her voice and body gave out and she sagged, head low as tears fell to the floor.

The hinges of the door to her cell creaked and she hurriedly wiped her cheeks on her biceps—no way she was going to let anybody see her cry.

"Finally talking to yourself, are you? That's good progress." Ibiki said jovially. Despite his clunkering boots, he glided into the room as silently as a phantom.

Karin bared her teeth at him, but found the angry expression fade when she saw the person behind him. "You! What are you doing here?" She narrowed her red-jasper eyes. "You're here to try and get me to talk about Sasuke-kun too, eh?"

The blonde teen shook his head. "If Ibiki can't get you to talk about him, like hell I'll be able to annoy anything out of you!" His blue eyes were piercing. "I just wanna talk."

"'Talk?'" she echoed before sneering. "Talk to this!" She snorted and spat at him.

Unfortunately for her, Ibiki threw his hand out and caught the glob of saliva before it could touch the blonde-haired teen. Karin felt the blood drain from her face as he tutted in disapproval.

"Oh, Karin, Karin, you should know better than to do something that vulgar by now." He said silkily, wiping the spit on her face.

She writhed about in an attempt to avoid him, but she knew it was hopeless. Her cheeks reddened with humiliation.

Cleaning his hand of the last of the saliva with the girl's hair, Ibiki put his hands in his pockets and strode out of the room, pulling the door shut behind him. "Take your sweet time, Uzumaki, she's going to be here for a long time."

The blonde nodded, though he didn't look at the older man.

Karin had quite forgotten the still-warm ooze coating her cheeks. "Uzumaki?" She repeated. "What the hell? Is that some kind of sick joke?"

The blonde—'_Naruto_,' her mind supplied, '_Sasuke-kun's old teammate_,'—scowled at her.

"What are you talking about? My name is Uzumaki Naruto, future Hokage of Konoha, and don't you forget it!"

"There's no way you could be an Uzumaki!" She snapped.

He glared fiercely at her. "And just why is that?"

"Because the Uzumaki clan is dead!"

She saw him mentally reel back and his expression sobered. "That would explain why I never even had distant relatives as a kid, but I'm not lying. My name is Uzumaki."

"Don't screw with me!" She screamed. Her eyes were burning. "There's no way you could be! Don't you think I'd know if anyone else from my family had survived? _Everybody_ died! You don't look anything like an Uzumaki, so don't go trying to trick me with such stupid lies!"

His eyes were wide and he looked as if he'd been slapped, hard. Eerily silent, he marched up to her. She suddenly felt very trapped in a way that the manacles on her wrists and ankles could not accomplish. She had never seen the boy look so serious, not even when he was fighting Sasuke.

"You're telling me the truth? Your name is truly Uzumaki Karin?"

She was faintly aware of warm water running down her cheeks. She made a feeble attempt to look formidable. "I'd sooner _die_ than lie about my heritage."

His gaze made her uncomfortable, but she resisted the urge to squirm under his scrutiny. Finally, he stepped back, looking both disturbed and thoughtful.

"I'm going to go now."

Karin was honestly surprised. "What? I thought you wanted to 'talk' to me?"

His lips were pressed thinly together. "Later. I… I need to look up something."

He was gone before she could speak up again. Karin stared, almost fearfully, at the door that closed behind him. But with that fear burned something she had thought she would never feel again.

Hope.

* * *

It was barely a day later that Karin found herself carted out of her cell and taken to Konoha Hospital (strapped to a bed and, of course, with the chakra-suppressing seals). At first, she had toyed with the idea that they were going to have Medic-nin rearrange her organs or something of the like, but that theory was thrown out the window when she was carted into a room with two blondes:

-The Godaime Hokage and 'Uzumaki' Naruto, respectively.

"What's going on?" She asked and was pleased to note that her voice did not belie her nervousness.

Naruto was sitting on another bed, his jacket cast off to the side to expose the fishnet T-shirt covering his chest. Tsunade straightened, flicking her hair to one side.

"We need a sample of your blood," the woman said, taking a needle out of a drawer.

Karin's eyes flickered over to the blue-eyed boy in the room; he was wrinkling his nose at the sight of the needle.

"A blood test?" It was more of a statement than a question, but Tsunade actually glanced her way this time.

A slight smile curved the well-endowed woman's red lips. "Smart girl. Yes, we going to see if you really are related to Naruto or not."

"And if I'm not?"

Tsunade's smile was venomously sweet. "Then you'll go back to your cell and nothing will happen." Her manicured fingers (a rarity even amongst kunoichi) squeezed the tube, forcing out the last of the air.

Karin kept her eyes fixated on the medical tool as the woman neared her. "And if I am?"

Tsunade's espression darkened ever so slightly. "That remains to be seen."

Karin looked away as the Hokage rolled up her long sleeves, unintentionally locking eyes with Naruto. She felt shapely, calloused fingers run across the bite scars covering her arm.

"What is this?" Tsunade asked.

Karin glanced at her only briefly. "I can heal others by allowing them to bite me and suck out my chakra."

The older woman's hand settled on her elbow. "You do this often?"

"No. But the marks never fade."

"I see,"

She felt the woman tie a band around her upper arm and tap the vein bulging out from the crook of her elbow. She couldn't break her eyes away from the teen that could possibly, _just possibly_, be a member of her long-lost family.

'_I always thought Mom and I were the only ones who survived,_' she thought to herself, _'and then _that_ village was attacked too and then there was only me.'_

Tsunade removed the needle and grunted in surprise when no blood oozed from the minute wound.

"I'm a fast healer," Karin said by way of an explanation, and she was—the shinobi that interrogated her had needed to work twice as hard to get her to bleed like any normal person. Naruto blinked.

The Slug Princess, however, made no response, instead handing the small vial of blood to her black-haired assistant. "Okay, Naruto, your turn."

That seemed to pull the blonde out of his stupor and he didn't bother holding back a groan of dismay. "I hate needles."

The other blonde scoffed. "Just be glad you're not stuck here for a week this time. I just need one little vial of blood then you can go."

Life-sustaining fluid squirted into the tube, a simple, red fluid that held so many secrets. Secrets that Karin wasn't sure she was prepared to learn about.

* * *

The day she was taken out of her cell for a second time and put in a straight jacket was the day Karin knew that the results of the blood test had been concluded. The straight jacket, she knew, was a way of keeping her constrained without letting her hands get close enough to make seals.

All she could think about was how the cream coloring of the jacket made her look even paler than she already had become. Her red-jasper eyes were ringed with exhaustion and her skin felt tight against her bones. She felt like she might throw up.

'_I wish I had my glasses,_' she thought. What she wouldn't give for their comforting weight on her nose now, however little comfort it might have brought.

Ibiki himself dragged her up to the Hokage's personal office—for privacy reasons, she figured—his hand settled dangerously at the back of her neck. She forced herself not to think about how easily he could snap it. He pulled, her, stumbling, into the room. Tsunade was sitting at her desk, fingers cupped before her. Karin noted the slight pink on the blonde woman's cheeks and wondered if she had been drinking.

'_What I wouldn't give to get plastered myself right now!'_ Out loud, she said, "Well?"

Ibiki's fingers tightened on her neck. She tensed and shut her mouth with an audible click.

Tsunade appeared unfazed. "Now we wait for Naruto to show up. I want to say this with both of you in the room."

It was answer enough for Karin. If they weren't related, there would be no reason to announce it like this. They probably wouldn't even have had to bother removing her from her cell. She was distantly aware of water cascading down her dirty cheeks though she was too stunned to do so much as blink. Ibiki's hand slipped away as her legs gave out from under her and she fell to her knees. Tsunade gave her a withering look as she stared at the floor, tears dripping to soak into the carpet.

The heavy wooden doors swung open, revealing a slightly disheviled Naruto, though Karin was too lost in her own mind to look at him.

"Sorry, Obaa-chan, I was with Kakashi-sensei!"

"Don't go picking up his bad habits, Naruto!"

"Don't worry, I won't! So what did you…" he then noticed the other two people in the room, "You," he swallowed thickly, "You got the test results?"

The blonde woman nodded solemnly. "Yes, it's confirmed. You two are first cousins."

Karin felt like the world had been pulled out from under her. Her head snapped up, tears still falling without end. "First…" she turned her head to meet Naruto's blue gaze, "Oh, god. Kushina… You're Auntie Kushina's son?"

"Is that… my mother's name?" he whispered back.

She nodded slowly. "My mother was an only child, and my father… Auntie Kushina was the only member of the family I never met. They said… she died shortly after I was born. In October."

His expression became pained. "October tenth," he muttered. His eyes glimmered with awe and he took a step toward her, reaching out to brush his fingers against her cheekbone. "Karin… nee-chan? He spoke softly, as if tasting the honorific.

Karin trembled slightly and forced down the sob bubbling up her throat. _'I… I have family again. I have… a living, breathing relative. I'm not the last of the Uzumaki after all.'_

Tsunade cleared her throat suggestively, and the two turned their heads to look at her. "I hate to break this moment up, I really do, but we still want information from you, Karin." Her caramel-colored eyes became fierce. "So you need to choose your loyalties now."

Karin stared, watery-eyed, at the older woman. Her mind flitted through the memories of her life with Orochimaru, he life with Sasuke and Suigetsu and Juugo. She glanced up at the blonde teen before her—'_my cousin_,' she thought with awe—and the last few, unpleasant weeks as a prisoner of Konoha and _something_ slipped into its proper place.

Karin got to her feet, facing the Hokage, her mouth set in a determined line and shouted,

"Stupidest question I've ever heard!"

* * *

_I'll leave it up to you, the reader, which side Karin is taking. (Wink)_

_Something that popped into my mind after reading a MinatoKushina fic and taking a gander at Kushina's page over at Narutopedia. Her red hair got me thinking about Karin and thus was born-THIS! It's practically crack. But what can I say? I've been into family fics lately._

_It would be cool to turn this into a full-length story, but if you know me, you know that I have plenty of other multi-chapter fics that definitely need to be done before I start on any new multi-chapter fics. So, if anyone else wants to make a fic with this as a basis, go ahead._

_Hope you loved!_

_Read, review, and all that jazz,_

_Megii_


End file.
